To add to the shopping list:

Threadleaf bluestar (amsonia hubrichtii). Cloud of feathery foliage, little blue flowers, and turns a lovely bright yellow in fall. And they like dry soil, for a bonus.




Miscanthus 'Kleine Fontaine', because I saw a stunning picture of it growing in someone's Montreal garden. Fancy feathery maiden grass, which I already love and have resolved to acquire, only even better because it blooms RED.




I don't think I got around to mentioning, either, that I've managed to identify the prickly thing invading from the neighbour's yard. The neighbour didn't know what it was called, just that it produced bright orange berries if you had both a male and a female plant - and one of my garden magazines had a feature on such a thing. It's a bittersweet vine.

Yep, that looks pretty familiar.

I think it must also be the semi-civilized kind, since it hasn't suckered too egregiously. Helpfully a google image search also turns up a bunch of interesting crafty uses for cut branches of the stuff. Hmmm!